As the world’s population continues to expand, ensuring that food production can meet the growing demand is an ever-mounting challenge. Climate change, soil degradation, and volatile food prices further threaten food security at a time when increasing agricultural output is paramount.

Regional spending on agricultural research and development (R&D) must double if the countries of SSA are to meet the recommended United Nations (UN) and African Union’s target of investing 1 percent of agricultural GDP in public agricultural R&D, not to mention the even more ambitious post-2015 recommendation that low- and middle-income countries ramp up spending on agricultural R&D by five percent from 2015 to 2025.

The report highlights additional challenges to national agricultural research systems:

Low staff retention and qualification levels: Civil service recruitment restrictions, low salaries, and inadequate funding have prevented many public agricultural research institutions from competing for, training, and retaining staff; in addition, a very large share of senior researchers are approaching retirement

Low female participation: Although female participation in agricultural R&D has increased in recent years, women have less influence on decisionmaking and policy because men continue to dominate in senior research and management positions.

High funding volatility: Volatile fluctuations in agricultural R&D funding exert negative impacts on agricultural research systems by impeding strategic planning, undermining the conduct of research programs, demotivating staff, and eroding prior progress, all of which affect the quality, quantity, and efficiency of research outcomes and their ultimate impact on agricultural productivity and poverty alleviation.

High donor dependency: Significant shares of government funding are generally allocated to salaries, leaving many countries dependent on donor and development bank funding to support the day-to-day costs of operating research programs and developing and maintaining R&D infrastructure; in addition to increasing funding volatility, high dependence on donor funding has the potential to skew national research priorities.

African governments and research agencies are limited in their choice of options to address the many challenges they face in developing their agricultural research systems because of funding constraints. The ASTI report lists various successful policy changes already adopted in certain countries, which can offer valuable lessons for other countries.

“It is critical that African countries invest more in agricultural research to ensure that they can feed their populations,” said Beintema. “Underinvestment, inadequate human resource capacity, poor research infrastructure, and a lack of coherent policies continue to constrain the quantity and quality of research outputs in many countries.”

New work is underway to develop stronger integration between partnerships and technical research and analysis in support of the next phase of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) – and specifically the CGIAR response to and support for the Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa (S3A). Efforts for this new activity build on the strengths of on-going work of programs such as ASTI, HarvestChoice, ReSAKSS and Africa Rising to strengthen increased engagement in the larger science and technology landscape. This includes developing the tools, technologies and delivery systems necessary to make progress on the targets and goals for CAADP’s next phase of implementation.

A meeting was organized and hosted by the new IFPRI-based S&T Partnerships in Africa team on behalf of the CGIAR Consortium, and held in Washington, D.C. on September 29 and 30, 2014. Entitled Support of Scientific and Technical Partnerships in Africa, the meeting aimed to activate the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the African Union Commission (AUC) and the CGIAR Consortium. In attendance were over 30 partners from the African research for development institutions, development partners and colleagues from CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and Centers.

Building on the good progress made over the past few years on the CGIAR alignment to CAADP, initiated through the Dublin Process, the next step is to develop activities in support of targets and goals listed in the Malabo Declaration to deliver on the next phase of CAADP in Africa.

The two-day meeting addressed three main topics:

How CGIAR will respond to and support the implementation of the Malabo Declaration through supporting theS3A, which has been led by FARA over the past year and will be launched formally in Johannesburg in November;

The role new technologies and virtual technology platforms will play in the delivery of the Science Agenda, and how to conduct the collaboration between CGIAR, FARA and the SROs to deliver, and;

In follow-up to the Climate Summit held that week in New York City, a session was held to discuss how the AUC and CGIAR, including CCAFS and others, will come together to deliver on the technical research and implementation at the country level on Climate Smart Agriculture.

Working with ASTI and several other key partners, we will expand our reach to a wide array of partner programs and institutions and help “connect the dots” by creating new ways of sharing information, communications and research among partners, and finding innovative ways to move together to address country-led priorities to tackle poverty and hunger.

TheAgricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI)website is home to a new feature. ASTI has extracted the most relevant and consistent data from CGIAR centers’ annual reports to make it more accessible for reporting and analysis for those interested in the CGIAR’s financial and staffing evolution.

Detailed information on staffing, funding, and expenditures of individual CGIAR centers and the CGIAR system as a whole are now available in a series of interactive graphs and data downloads, providing visual insights into the evolution of the CGIAR system. This information was previously only available online in the PDF versions of the CGIAR annual financial reports.

ASTI supports the current CGIAR Open Access and Data Management Policy, which was established and adopted in November 2013, falling in line with scaling up good practice of making the current data more easily available. The CGIAR datasets will be maintained and updated by ASTI depending on funding availability.

African agricultural research spending increased by 40 percent during 2000–2011, which was largely driven by increased spending in just two countries: Nigeria and Uganda.

Investment levels in most other countries are still well below the levels required to sustain agricultural R&D needs. In 2011, only 10 African countries met the NEPAD/UN target of spending 1% of agricultural output on agricultural research.

Donors and development banks remain an important funding source for African agricultural R&D, but are also main drivers of funding volatility.

Despite rapid growth in the total number of agricultural researchers in the region, many countries continue to face serious capacity constraints, which has been accelerated by the aging of more qualified researchers.

This highlights the urgent need to recruit and train the next generation of agricultural scientists.

There are many encouraging signs that African agricultural research is moving in the right direction, not in the least thanks to an increasing number of recent (sub-) regional initiatives. Nonetheless, much more is needed to tackle the remaining challenges, which the Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa is set to address. The Science Agenda is based on the belief that African agriculture is too important to be outsourced to international investors and that every country requires a basic science capacity as an essential part of an agriculture-led social and economic transformation.

ASTI indicators provide a useful benchmark of the current status of agricultural R&D investment and capacity in Africa and for monitoring future progress of the Science Agenda, which is currently under final review for the adoption by AU Heads of Government in July 2014. The continuous monitoring of agricultural R&D investment and capacity in Africa is an effective tool to hold governments accountable for implementing the necessary policy changes and funding allocations needed to meet the objectives of the Science Agenda. Indicators play a key role in driving future change.

Forthcoming ASTI outputs for Africa over the next few months include a series of country factsheets, a regional report, datasets, and a revamped ASTI website.

DIIVA stands for Diffusion and Impact of Improved Varieties in Africa, a project that collected data on improved crop varieties in Africa south of the Sahara. The three featured databases on adoption, varietal releases, and the scientific strength of breeding programs, organized around a set of 154 crop-country combinations (across 21 crops and 29 countries). The databases are hosted by the ASTI web site. (www.asti.cgiar.org)

Why is DIIVA relevant?

The steady uptake and turnover of crop varieties is key to supporting increases in food production in Africa and creating a trampoline effect of green agriculture in Africa and supporting increases in food production Yet despite the efforts of agricultural researchers in crop improvement in the region, the current knowledge of the diffusion of improved crop varieties is patchy at best.

The data and analysis generated through the DIIVA project closes this salient knowledge gap. It provides information on the effectiveness of each of crop improvement systems in delivering modern varieties to farmers, and provides insights into means to improve the way that the CGIAR and the African national agricultural research institutions can work together more effectively.

DIIVA and ASTI data interaction

ASTI is expanding its website with other databases related to agricultural R&D in developing countries, such as DIIVA. By hosting the DIIVA website, visitors will be able to link the adoption and release of specific crops and countries with the overall status of agricultural R&D in the near future when ASTI releases its updated dataset for the region (planned for spring 2014). For example, adoption of various maize varieties in Tanzania can be compared with the country’s allocation of research resources to maize.

What were the DIIVA findings?

According to the CGIAR, “Output in the form of released varieties is increasing for most crops, but is still characterized by a high level of instability from year to year.” Overall adoption of improved varieties across the countries and crops of Africa south of the Sahara is estimated at 35%, but masking significant variation across crops. This represents steady progress when compared to prior estimates from the early 2000s.

Furthermore, during the discussion of substantive results in the sections on varietal output, adoption, and change, the DIIVA project has also had its share of surprises. For example, “Prominent among these unexpected findings are the increasing demand for maize OPVs in West Africa, the steady productivity record of cassava in the face of well-documented resource scarcity, and the advanced age of cultivars in the expanding soybean crop in Nigeria.”

The 2nd General Assembly of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) was the ideal launching pad for a new series of ASTI country factsheets. These factsheets convert ASTI data and analysis into visual, easy-to-read overviews of agricultural R&D capacity and investments in African countries. The launch allowed for key stakeholders from ASARECA member countries to get a first glance at these innovative ASTI outputs. ASTI head Nienke Beintema was a featured speaker at the General Assembly where the factsheets were widely distributed. The ASARECA General Assembly was attended by 400 representatives from the 11 ASARECA countries , including Ministers of Agriculture, directors of the National Agricultural Research Institutes, university deans, researchers, farmer representatives and other stakeholders. Also in attendance were representatives of various regional and international organizations as well as the donor community.

The objective of the ASTI factsheets is to highlight trends and challenges in country-level agricultural R&D spending and human capacity, and allow for a cross-country comparison of key indicators. The first five countries featured include Burundi, DR Congo, Madagascar, Sudan, and Tanzania. Each factsheet contains a quick overview of recent trends, as well as a presentation of key institutional, financial, and human resource indicators. Each factsheet also features a more in-depth analysis of some of the key challenges that individual agricultural R&D systems are facing.

The ASTI team—in close collaboration with the National Agricultural Research Institutes and other national partners—is currently finalizing factsheets for 36 countries in Africa South of the Sahara. These will become available on the ASTI website in the coming few months. The ASTI website will also be enhanced and expanded to include data download, graphing, and benchmarking tools.

Modernizing the agricultural sector is a key task in developing Asia, in particular for low income countries according to the “Key Indicators for the Asia and Pacific 2013” report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). To follow in the path of high-income countries in the region, agricultural research and development (R&D) investment will be necessary to bring about the technological innovation needed for this modernization. The new regional synthesis report “Benchmarking Agricultural Research Indicators across Asia–Pacific” published by ASTI and APAARI presents the most recent data available on agricultural R&D in the region, laying out a baseline by which to measure future progress.

The Asia–Pacific region has increasingly raised the profile of its contribution to global agricultural R&D. In 2008, $0.40 of every dollar spent on public agricultural R&D worldwide targeted the countries of this region. Total public agricultural R&D spending in Asia–Pacific increased by 50 percent since 1996 to $12.3 billion in 2008. Most of this growth was driven by the region’s low- and middle-income countries, whereas growth in the region’s high-income countries stagnated. In fact, growth in public agricultural R&D spending in the region’s low- and middle-income countries has outpaced growth in all other developing regions around the world since the 1980s. China and India accounted for almost all of this growth which is a reflection of the strong support of their governments to public agricultural R&D acknowledging its important role in driving agricultural growth.

Aside from increased spending, most low- and middle-income countries in the region have also made considerable progress in building human resource capacity in agricultural R&D. With a few exceptions, the number of scientists employed in most countries across the region has increased, and in all the sample countries scientists’ qualification levels have improved since the 1990s.

This development is notable given the widespread challenges that these agencies face, including attracting and maintaining a pool of well-qualified research staff, and dealing with disproportionate numbers of either aging, senior staff, or junior, inexperienced staff. Some countries with a history of political isolation (notably Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam) still have very low numbers of PhD-qualified staff, forming a significant impediment to advancing the quality of research.

Despite these positive developments, agricultural R&D spending as a share of agricultural output in Asia–Pacific is lagging behind other regions of the developing world. In 2008, of the 13 low- and middle-income countries for which detailed spending data were available, Malaysia was the only country investing more than 1 percent of its agricultural GDP in agricultural research. Even though intensity ratios do not take into account the policy and institutional environment within which agricultural research takes place or the broader size and structure of a country’s agricultural sector and economy, these low ratios are a clear sign of underinvestment in agricultural R&D.

If Asia–Pacific is to meet its agricultural, economic, and emerging challenges, including rapid population growth, climate change, environmental degradation, and food price volatility, levels of investment in agricultural R&D must increase. In addition, such investments will need to be better managed, timed, and targeted to ensure maximum impact on productivity growth and poverty reduction. The private sector, for example, is still an untapped resource in many of the region’s countries.

Simply put: Supporting policy reforms offer further potential to ensure that the benefits of agricultural R&D translates into future results.

In a recent event which focused on capacity development for agricultural research, Rob Bertram of USAID stated that, “…without capacity being developed in our partner countries, the likelihood that our investments are going to last over time and perpetuate themselves is going to be reduced or compromised.”

National agricultural research systems (NARS), according to USAID, are the backbone of an agricultural innovation system and include all public, semi-public, and private agricultural R&D in a country, including universities, government laboratories, private sector research, and NGO or producer-led research enterprises.

In the early 90’s agriculture and food dropped off the radars of many governments and donors and as a result, funding for agricultural R&D and human resource development stagnated and became highly volatile – resulting in a roller coaster effect for many countries dependent on donors for funding. Underinvestment can be seen in many of the low-income countries of Africa, as detailed by Nienke Beintema’s presentation at the event. Although overall investment and capacity have increased in Africa south of the Sahara, researchers struggle with low salaries, lack of training, and few resources to support the operating and capital costs of research in most countries.

The Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative led by IFPRI, provides up-to-date quantitative and qualitative data and analyses on investment, capacity, and institutional trends in agricultural research and development (R&D) in low- and middle-income countries that will assist R&D managers and policymakers in improved policy formulation and decision making at national, regional, and international levels.

Coincidentally, the theme for the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) Africa Science Week Conference in Accra is: Africa feeding Africa through Agricultural Science and Innovation. In the blog post “I am young, agriculture is not for me,” author Margaret Bulambu explains the need to attract the next generation to agriculture as a career. Building capacity in the next generation of young Africans, and creating opportunities that take into account the needs and interests of the current round of students will be a necessary investment to keep agricultural R&D and food security sustainable for the future.

Malaysia recently celebrated its 5th year hosting the International Centre for South-South Cooperation for Science, Technology and Innovation (ISTIC), a platform for knowledge sharing and capacity building under UNESCO. According to UNESCO, “Malaysia's commitment and clear policy to drive science, technology and innovation has put the country on the right track to achieve developed-nation status.” Coinciding with the recognition of Malaysia’s commitment to science, the release of ASTI’s Country Note, produced in collaboration with the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), prompts the question of whether the country’s investment in agricultural research and development (R&D) also reflects this commitment.

The analysis found that public agricultural R&D investment in Malaysia has remained high compared with many other developing countries. Spending has become more volatile in recent years due to fluctuations in government funding levels, however. Staffing levels increased, primarily reflecting the recruitment of younger, BSc-qualified researchers. The country’s growing researcher capacity measured against a decreasing number of farmers led to a higher ratio of researchers to farmers.

UNESCO states that, “as a high middle-income country striving to attain high-income status, Malaysia has made science, technology and innovation a cornerstone of its development strategy. It invests 1.07% of its GDP in research and development, making it one of ASEAN’s leaders in this area.”

ASTI data indicates that Malaysia similarly spends about 1% of its agricultural GDP on agricultural R&D. In comparison, while this rate is much higher than the average for developing countries (less than half a percent), the average for high-income countries is 3%. To build on the solid foundation of public agricultural research, issues of concern include ongoing maintenance of capacity and infrastructure given funding fluctuations, and the training and mentoring of junior staff needed to replace retiring senior staff over the coming decades.

''Education and technology are huge game changers. You have to create opportunities and possibilities for people to develop their talent and also to attract global ones," said Prime Minister Najib Razak in reference to Malaysia’s Educational Blueprint. Opportunities and possibilities in agricultural R&D also abound, especially in strengthening the country’s ability to meet current and emerging challenges such as food and nutrition security and climate change.

Global challenges, including the recent food and financial crises and climate change, highlight the need for continued and scaled-up investments in agricultural R&D. Following a decade of slow growth in the 1990s, global public spending on agricultural R&D increased by 22 percent from 2000 to 2008—from $26.1 billion to $31.7 billion.

Middle-income countries have been the main drivers of global growth in recent years; spending growth in high-income countries stalled. China and India accounted for nearly half the global increase, but spending also rose significantly in a number of other middle-income countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Nigeria, and Russia. Growth was particularly strong from 2005 to 2008.

Most notably in Brazil and China, long-term government commitment to agricultural R&D and a supportive policy environment have fueled increased agricultural productivity, as well as overall economic growth. These productivity gains demonstrate the benefits of sustained government investments.

Although agricultural research spending continued to grow in low-income countries overall from 2000 to 2008, in many, spending stagnated or declined. These countries, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara, are highly vulnerable to volatile research funding, often the result of the short-term, project-oriented nature of donor and development bank funding. Additionally, R&D agencies in these countries lack the necessary human, operating, and infrastructure resources to successfully develop, adopt, and disseminate science and technology innovations.